Property transactions and price, both dropping. (Jan – Sept 2016)

When more units are launched with lower prices, it simply meant that in the future, the average prices would drop. Just look around at the continuous new launches of affordable units these days. Higher density and smaller-sized units are the norm as bigger and more expensive ones take a backseat. Special offers are sent to my smartphone at minimum every few days. Unfortunately I do not have unlimited funds and thus would have to ignore them and continue writing here in kopiandproperty.com Haha. Anyway, take a look at an earlier chart from year 2014. The annual median household income has increased but when we look at the ‘Affordability Rating’ we would note that there’s still a gap between the income versus property prices in both Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

In terms of 2016, for the periods of January to September, Malaysia’s residential property transactions has declined in both volume and value. This is according to Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong who spoke during the International Real Estate Federation (Fiabci) Premium Property Showcase 2016. He shared that in comparison to the same period last year, the volume of transactions in the residential property sector has dropped 14 percent to just 152,000 units while the value has dropped 11 percent to RM48.36 billion. Major reason is because of this, “Overall, the housing market has indeed softened since the Government introduced a slew of cooling measures to curb speculations and rein in the rapid rise in house prices.” 80 percent of all the residential transactions were for house prices RM500,000 or below.

Do not fret too much. Negative numbers are not necessary negative news, especially if you are one of those waiting to buy /invest. Just remember buying a wrong one can happen any time. In weeks, we should have some reports soon on all the different segments of the residential transactions. By then we can get to know a bit more detail on what’s really up and what’s really down. Happy following.

If the price has dropped 11 % from the same period last year, what is the total drop from the peak? 14% of transaction-volume drop is no small amount. With the economy slowing down, developers who are massaging their numbers must now be realistic and revise downwards. Prices have gone up too much, way beyond salaries. Better still, instead of cooling measures, disincentive measures to discourage developers from holding unsold units would be that they be given a number of years from the issue of sale license to discourage them from unnecessary holding of unsold units with some disincentive taxes for each year of holding.